WND Exclusive

Ben Carson: Obama officials 'acting like Gestapo'

'We're dealing with an extremely corrupt administration'

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and chief executive officer of WND. He is the author or co-author of 13 books that have sold more than 5 million copies, including his latest, "The Restitution of All Things: Israel, Christians, and the End of the Age." Before launching WND as the first independent online news outlet in 1997, he served as editor in chief of major market dailies including the legendary Sacramento Union.

WASHINGTON – Dr. Ben Carson, the brain surgeon turned popular political analyst, told WND Obama administration officials are “acting like the Gestapo” with the Justice Department indictment of Dinesh D’Souza coupled with the Internal Revenue Service’s political targeting of the administration’s critics.

“I believe we are dealing with an extremely corrupt administration,” he said.

Dr. Carson himself became the subject of an IRS audit after criticizing Barack Obama’s policies at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington last year.

“I’ve always been someone who has been very careful about my finances and the way I take care of my business,” said Dr. Carson. “I’ve never undergone this kind of scrutiny before, but then it comes after the prayer breakfast. They’re harassing my family. They’re harassing my colleagues. And they’re not finding anything – so that just makes them dig a little deeper.”

In a telephone interview today, Dr. Carson, who is talked about as a potential new brand of non-politician presidential candidate himself in 2016, said he was also disturbed by Obama’s comments in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly before the Super Bowl game last week.

“What he said was that his administration was not guilty of any wrongdoing with regard to the IRS and he blamed Fox News for reporting it,” Dr. Carson said. “I don’t think he would be happy unless Fox News were shut down and there was no more criticism of his actions.”

D’Souza was one of Obama’s most visible critics in the 2012 election year when he released the extremely popular documentary “2016: Obama’s America.”

D’Souza was indicted by a federal grand jury on two felony counts for violating campaign finance laws. He was charged with making false statements to the Federal Election Commission and illegally contributing $15,000 to a Senate candidate. He could face up to seven years in prison.

Cleta Mitchell, an attorney specializing in campaign finance issues, told WND, “The decision to prosecute – or not prosecute – is always a matter of discretion. It was the prosecutor’s decision – indeed DOJ’s decision – not to prosecute widespread conduit contributions to the John Edwards campaign in 2008. Contrast that with this prosecution, which involved $15,000 (not $20,000 as claimed).”

Asked whether she believes the indictment was politically motivated, Mitchell said, “Do I think this is politically motivated? I think if a Republican appointee had done this, the press corps would be going ballistic. Just consider how outraged they were when Bush asked for and received resignations of all U.S. attorney appointees at the start of his second term, something that is customary. Imagine if his appointee had gone after a George Soros friend. Imagine the outrage.”

Brent Bozell, founder and president of Media Research Center, cited former President Bill Clinton and Obama’s own history of accepting highly questionable campaign donations.

“Let’s assume Dinesh D’Souza is guilty, and I mean 100 percent guilty. What is he guilty of? Circumventing FEC dictates by directing [$15,000] to a Senate candidate of his choice. Big deal,” Bozell told WND. “First, in a multi-million Senate campaign, this is a fraction of a fraction. It ‘buys’ a can of soda pop, and that’s about it. Second, and more importantly, compare this ‘crime’ with Bill Clinton, who raised millions of dollars from questionable at best, and illegal at worst, sources, including felons and Chinese Communist generals. Compare it to Barack Obama, who raised millions upon millions from who-knows-who-or-where to this day. Nothing ever came of their fundraising abuses, abuses one thousandfold larger than anything attributed to D’Souza. And yet he was arrested and forced to post a $500,000 bond. It is astonishing. Given all the other abuses of power swirling around this administration, so many of them finding their origins in the ‘Justice’ Department, do I see deliberate persecution against conservatives? I am not conspiratorial by nature, but I will say unequivocally, you better believe it.”

“Of course it is,” she said. “It is payback from the DOJ. Plus, it sends a signal to anyone else for 2016 who may be thinking of producing a movie. It is up to the candidate to return the money. This should have been found when the FEC filing occurred. I don’t know the details, but this could cost Dinesh literally millions in legal defense fees, plus destroying his name and making him toxic to conservatives and Republicans. These are the goals of the political destruction machine at the DOJ.”

Likewise, Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, told WND, “Yes, I think it is political. It fits a pattern of abuse of power. As someone else said, President Obama is the president Nixon wanted to be.”